I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 25-26

This is another passage with many lessons for us, but today I want to focus on what we can learn about praying for things to happen.  When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane He prayed that He not have to go through the coming suffering.  However, He also surrendered Himself to God’s will in that prayer.  He desperately wanted to avoid the coming suffering, but He saw no way to avoid it if God’s plan was to be fulfilled.  In the same way, we should pray for that which we desire to happen, but accept that perhaps God’s plans require things to work out differently.  We should not be ashamed to pray for what we want, even when we believe God’s plan calls for something different.  We should just remain open to things not going as we desire.  We see more of this in Jesus’ second prayer.  In His second prayer, Jesus understood that He was going to need to suffer.  So, He referenced His desire that things go differently while surrendering completely to God’s will.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 23-24

Jesus repeatedly criticized those who did things in order to be seen by others as righteous.  As He describes them here they were continually telling people how much more righteous than everyone else they were.  They were meticulous at the ritual aspects of righteousness, but could not be bothered with those things which occurred out of the public eye.  They were insistent on being called, Reverend, or Teacher, or Father.  They wanted to be seen as being superior to others, as being able to mediate between the common person and God.  However, Jesus made it clear that sometimes the common people were guilty of setting such people up as superior to themselves.  That was just as wrong.  We should not allow others to call us Reverend, or Teacher, or Father, or some other honorific which suggests that we are better than they, but we also should not call anyone those things.  It is not just the titles, they are an indication of something more basic which has gone wrong.  Instead of seeking to be exalted by others, let us seek to serve them.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 21-22

When the religious leaders of Jerusalem challenged Jesus to declare by what authority He did the things which He did, He did not directly answer them.  Instead, He asked them if they thought that John the Baptist got his authority to baptize from Heaven, or merely from men.  They refused to answer.  We can learn a lot about having debates from this.  Jesus asked them this question because He knew that they were not asking because they wanted to know the answer.  They were asking in order to set up a narrative with those listening.  By asking His question, Jesus could establish the criteria by which His answer would be judged.  If they had said that John’s authority came from man, He would have established that they were merely looking for an excuse to demonize Him.  If they said that John’s authority came from Heaven, Jesus would have established a basis for making the case for His own authority.  By saying that they did not know the answer to Jesus’ question, they revealed that they were more interested in a “gotcha” moment than in an honest discussion.

A similar thing happened a little bit later when Jesus was asked about taxes and about marriage after the resurrection.  In both cases, those who asked the question were not interested in having an honest discussion.  They were looking for a “gotcha” moment.  In both cases, Jesus turned it around on them.  He showed that their questions looked at the situation they were about from the wrong direction.  This is something to which we need to pay careful attention.  Many of the conundrums we face in life result from looking at things the wrong way.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 18-20

I love this passage, from beginning to end it contains teachings which should guide our lives.  Near the beginning is a verse which I have recently seen taken out of context to claim that followers of Christ do not need to concern themselves with dressing modestly.  People take the phrase, “And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.” And use it to say that it is OK for someone to dress in a manner which inspires lust in others.  Now, they make a point that is relevant: Jesus’ teachings are directed for us to apply to ourselves, not to others.  However, shortly before He says the phrase they like to quote, Jesus says, “Temptations are inevitable, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting.”   So, we should think carefully about how we dress and act so as to not tempt others into sin.

From there Jesus speaks about the lost sheep and what to do if a fellow believer sins.  These all tie together.  Let’s see if I can explain how in a way which makes sense.  The first bit discusses how we should take responsibility for our own actions and go to extreme measures to avoid sin, but also indicates that we, and others, will sin.  Then He tells us of the effort which God will go to in order to redeem those who do sin, and effort which we should also be willing to exert.  From there, Jesus speaks of how we should act when we observe our fellow believer sin.  It is a three step process, go privately, take one or two others with us, and only if we still believe they are sinning after that, take it to the Body of Believers.  I am convinced from Jesus’ choice of words that at each step of the process we should listen to the person’s explanation of their actions while being open to the possibility that they had not acted in the manner which we thought.  The one or two witnesses should not have decided in advance that the person had sinned.  The Body of Believers should not have decided in advance that the person had sinned.  They should listen to what both parties have to say and reach a judgement only after hearing the “sinners” explanation for their actions.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 15-17

There is a lot to be learned from this passage, but I want to focus on what Jesus says about following man-made traditions and rules instead of following the commands given by God.  I will first note that the traditions which Jesus calls out were not invented from whole cloth by the Pharisees.  They developed these traditions as an interpretation of certain instructions which had come from God,  However, we must keep in mind that doing this is a human tendency.  We all have a tendency to make complex rules that allow us to justify serving our own interests rather than obeying God.  We should be careful about listening to the guidance given by religious leaders who are willing to tell us what we want to hear.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 13-14

Jesus taught using parables because the concepts He was teaching could not be summed up in simple, one-size fits all ways.  Those unwilling to accept the complex answers which Jesus teaches find His parables confusing and contradictory.  Those who truly seek God will understand how each parable presents just a partial picture of the whole truth.  An example of what I am talking about can be seen by comparing Jesus’ parable of the good seed and the weeds to the saying “Kill them all. Let God sort them out.”  Jesus’ parable is the exact opposite of the saying.  Both things tell us that we do not have the ability to distinguish between truly good people and truly bad people.  Both tell us that only God can do that.  However, Jesus tells us that it is better to let the guilty go unpunished than to harm the innocent, while the human saying tells us that it is more important to punish the guilty than to protect the innocent.

We will see how this next bit goes.  I am going to try to make a connection between Jesus’ parables about the Kingdom of Heaven and the account of Peter attempting to walk on water.  Jesus describes how small things lead to great things.  This is a theme which Jesus speaks of quite a bit.  Earlier in Matthew, Jesus told us we should be like salt.  Here, Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven to yeast and to a mustard seed.  All of these things share a common element.  It doesn’t take much salt to completely change the flavor of food.  It only takes a small amount of yeast to make a lump of dough become much larger.  A mustard seed is very small and hard to locate if you drop it, but the plant which comes from it grows very large.  So, the message Jesus was giving us there was that small things can accomplish great things.  The connection to Peter attempting to walk on water is that if we want to do miraculous things we need to focus on Christ and not let ourselves be distracted by what else is going on.  In a way this brings us back to what I talked about in the first paragraph.  If we want to transform the world by destroying evil, we need to be strong and powerful.  On the other hand, if we focus on doing God’s will, He will transform those around us even though we are no more than a grain of salt, or a bit of yeast.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 10-12

Jesus makes many points in this passage which we need to give deep thought.  I am only going to touch on a few of them.  The first one I am going to look at is the contrast between the approach Jesus and John the Baptist took to preaching their message.  John the Baptist took an austere, ascetic approach.  He preached in the desert and expected people to come to him.  Jesus, on the other hand, went to where people were.  He joined them at their feasts and at their parties.  He ate and drank with them.  Despite their different styles, they both preached much the same message; repent of your sins and do what is good.  They also respected each other.  Jesus spoke highly of John, and John sent his disciples to Jesus.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 7-9

Today’s passage begins with Jesus saying something which people love to quote, “Do not judge others…” and there is merit in paying close attention to that and the ways in which Jesus expounds on that.  However, a little further on Jesus also tells us that we can identify a tree by its fruit.  He says this in the context of warning us to beware of false prophets.  There He tells us that we can identify what type of person someone is by their actions.  So, we have two different instructions from Jesus.  One tells us not to judge others, the other tells us to pay attention to how people act and judge them accordingly.  A little closer look at what Jesus says immediately after telling us not to judge reveals that He is telling us to apply the same standard to others that we apply to ourselves.  Actually, I think Jesus is telling us we should apply the standard we apply to others to ourselves.  All too often we loudly complain about those who break a “rule” in minor way when we ourselves break that same “rule” in a major way.  We should instead seek to be more forgiving of the failure of others than we are of our own failures (although there are people who take this too far as well).

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 5-6

I have always loved this passage, there is so much in it for us to learn from.  For me what Jesus has to say about salt losing its flavor strikes me as the central take away from this passage today.  I recently saw someone say that Christians being pro-life makes people not want to get to know Christ.  That is the sort of thinking that Jesus was talking about when He said that if we lose our flavor we become good for nothing.  I almost did not use that example because I am not a champion of making abortion illegal…I am not a champion of making anything illegal.  As a Christian, I want to convince people not to do things which will cause them, or others, harm.  I want them to not do those things because they love God, not because those things are illegal.  Nevertheless, we should not be afraid to express unpopular opinions that reflect Jesus’ teachings.

However, just a few verses further on Jesus warns us against allowing ourselves to be controlled by anger, a temptation which can be hard to resist when talking about some of today’s issues.  I want to go on to another aspect of Jesus’ teaching about being salt.  Well, actually, it is the other metaphor He uses for the same lesson, being light.  He tells us to let our good deeds shine out for all to see, but, again just a few verses down, He tells us to not do our good deeds for others to see them.  He says that we should give to the needy in private, that we should pray and fast in ways that others do not see.  As part of His teaching about giving to the needy, Jesus tells us not to worry about our physical needs.  Let’s pay careful attention here.  He tells us to not worry about OUR physical needs while telling us to care for the physical needs of others.  Seek first God’s Kingdom and His will and everything we need will be provided.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Matthew 1-4

As I was reading Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth and Mary and Joseph’s flight to Egypt I was struck by something interesting.  I have frequently seen the family (Joseph, Mary, and Jesus) compared to refugees, poor people with just what they can carry on their backs and on the back of their donkey.  I have never questioned that image because it fits with how I think of Jesus’ family going to Egypt.  However, Matthew tells us that the wise men had given Jesus (and, let’s be honest, at that age they really would have been giving it to His parents) gold, frankincense, and myrrh just before the family began their journey to Egypt.  That means that Joseph and Mary were not destitute refugees when they went to Egypt.  In fact, they were relatively well to do at that point.

In addition, reading Matthew’s account of John the Baptist and Jesus’ interaction with John the Baptist struck me differently than I had ever thought of it before.  Typically, we have read this passage as showing John the Baptist as a unique figure who previewed Jesus’ coming.  While there is truth to that and things we can learn about our relationship with God by looking at it that way, I believe there is more to it than that.  We know now that John the Baptist was part of a larger religious movement, perhaps even the leader of that movement, which is only mentioned in the Gospels in connection with John.  Those for whom Matthew was writing would have been familiar with that religious movement to one degree or another.   I believe that Matthew included this account to make the connection between Jesus and that movement.   With his account of John the Baptist, Matthew is placing Jesus in the midst of a Jewish tradition which emphasized faithfully following God.